Now ManusDomine will talk about his ideal magic system and pretend his opinion has any relevance:
Right, Mage - The Awakening is a fucking awesome game and this is an objective fact. You may think otherwise, but you're wrong.
But more importantly, it's a game that I have a lot of ideas about that are only sort of reflected in the game material, so I will try to expound on my ideal magic system for Mage - The Awakening.
I like a version of the setting where there are vanishingly few actual mages, most are Sleepwalkers, Proximi and even stranger sorts of people, they may have embers or specks of Supernal knowledge, perhaps one is something like a parapsychic from Cthulhutech, having grown up with the ability to levitate, attact and repel objects, but also knowing that he is doomed to slowly go mad, as he forces his mind through the patterns of eldritch mathematics that he uses to re-model the world, while another is born, knowing herself to be a hero blessed with great power but also the hero's curse. I want the Exarchs to be a constant element, whenever you open your True Eyes; the seraphic eyes of The Eye burning visibly within every camera, every window and every eye just like the swords of The General hang over the heads of young soldiers sent to die and the crown of The Father sits upon the brow of all ministers of faith. I want mages to see a maddening kaleidoscope of eldritch sigils and occult symbolism whenever their mage sight is activated, and I want them to ruin the Fallen World with their hubris when they pull down idealized Supernal Law to shake the pillars of the fragile Fallen World.
And most importantly, I want mages to be fucking ridiculously Sodom-and-Gomorrah powerful when they truly want something done, and I want their backlashes to not have a single personal repercussion at all. Their paradoxes tear at the world and leave gaping cracks that the unreality of the Abyss invades through; watch, young mage as the immutable laws of mathematics twist and turn to the whims of Gulmoth, watch young mage as history rewrites itself at the movements of the Anunnaki and even biology and physics are made to dance at the frantic clawing of the Acamoth, desperately fighting to escape the stifling prison of the Fallen World.
To accomplish this, my desires for a magic system is that a mage can't actually fail his casting. Instead, he envisions a general idea of what he wants, puts together some factors that will signify difficulty in some way and then he simply declares that it happens. What he does then is the usual roll to control his spell, if he fails such a roll, the spell goes out of control, while a Dramatic Failure causes the spell to do all sorts of wonky stuff that it's not supposed to do. This process should involve a ridiculously small dice pool unless it is boosted by symbolic resonance, built around a Shadow Name and a persona so that a mage who is actually pretentious enough to call himself Azathoth will have to surround himself with mad fluting and lose himself to the stupor of ecstasy in order to control his spells as he reaches high to pull down the Supernal.
Mind you, I don't want this to be a paradigm-thing, I already have Ascension for all my magical solipsistic needs. Instead, it is symbolism, literally pseudo-divine smoke and mirrors to create an anchor for the Supernal and make the casting easier.
Paradox should not be directly harmful to the mage, but to the Fallen World around them. A Havoc is redundant, because spells going out of control is like, a basic feature of the system now, so instead Havoc fills your spell with twisted power, maximizing it's strength at the cost of any sort of finesse so a fireball that would incinerate a vampire instead levels a house. Most paradoxes are Anomalies, which twist the Fallen World and causes all sorts of weird stuff to happen such as gravity deciding that today is actually opposite day and ENJOY FALLING UPWARDS MOTHERFUCKERS or language going "this consistency thing is pretty cool but what if we did this instead" and suddenly everyone speaks Aklo, while Manifestations mean that Anumerus shows up and you have to deal with the horrors of Abyssal mathematics or some wacky shit like that.
This leaves Branding and Bedlam behind, but I always though those were boring so I'm okay with that.
I'm just not sure how it ties into being the Guardians of the Veil.
Also, let's see. Other things I'm thinking about: race, gender, nationalism, etc and etc and Mages. I had a lot of thoughts about this. Obviously Mage society itself is probably historically lighter on this stuff, if only because they share so much from Awakening, but it was admitted in the books that AA's were swept up in nationalism, and more than that, there'd be an interesting/difficult dichotomy.
A powerful female Mage in 1300 might wield immense power among the magical set, yet among the Sleepers she would be burdened and judged as if she wasn't someone who knew the literal Truths of the goddamn universe.
And people think *she's* the bad guy when she gets fed up and shoots lightning bolts at sexist Sleepers.
There'd be an interesting sort of restraint and a difficulty/complexity to advancing in the Sleeper world, especially when combined with a lot less restraint in the Mage world. It could certainly drive minority Mages (in the olden days or even now to a lesser extent) towards focusing on the magical world and magical attainment in disregard to Sleeper-style-ambitions that are placed out of their reach[1].
After all, plenty of Mages want Sleeper-style comforts or Sleeper-style success. They want to love and live and settle down and buy a new house or see the latest movie or play or cave painting (depending on when you're talking).
It's something to think about, at least.
[1] At least without a lot of hubristic effort that might draw attention.
*****
On a rather more practical note, is there any guidelines to how many Mages are in a Consilium? Other than 'As many as makes sense/as you need?'
The Prince believed in the principle that the craftswoman made her own tools, and had designed the means of execution, the site, and every small element of the experience herself.
It was on a trail far from the city, far from anything at all. It was out of use, not even for some grim reason that might have drawn people like maggots buzzing around a corpse. If you used a lost or haunted woods in America for your execution grounds, or dark rituals, or anything the Kindred might want unseen, then sooner or later the forest would have the label haunted, and then a plague of idiots with cameras or YouTube channels would descend upon it.
Some no doubt viewed it as a buffet waiting to happen, but the Prince had taken a longer view.
The prisoner was at an unused end of an old trail that had been replaced decades ago with a less difficult, more beautiful trail, one that passed gorgeous vistas instead of winding its way towards a long-demolished mansion in the woods. All that was left of that mansion was the basement (and most didn't even know that it existed, still), but there were no horror stories about it.
There should have been, about the things on its walls, on its floors, and the stairs that should not exist.
There are things even the Kindred fear, besides of course each other. (Open the door and walk down the creaking stairs, each groaning with the pain of a thousand dead: yet it is known that very few have walked in. The average Vampire is more deadly than the room down there, quantitatively. So you step down, slowly. One. Another. Another. Another Step. All the while, cursing your luck.)
But even if a Kine sought to visit this basement--a one way journey, no doubt--they wouldn't have turned off a half-mile away from this unknown basement to go down an even less used path. If so they wouldn't have had the persistence to go through brambles that seemed to sup on the blood of those around them, or continue past stones almost deliberately placed to make one trip and fumble. It was not a path truly maintained anymore, not even by the Prince. But if you followed it, you'd eventually reach, willingly or not, a grove, a clearing, with shriveled grass, a huge patch of uncovered ground and a clear view of the sky.
That was where the prisoner would die. In the dirt.
It was dark still. There were probably hours left. Hours were not a long time for anyone. This place stank, but not of blood: they always cleaned it up, so instead the stink was of dirt and dust, of the spoor of countless animals and the decay of dying trees. It was a smell that stuck with you, that clung to your clothes, if you wore clothes.
The prisoner did, of course. It was the smallest possible bit of dignity. Dignity was not always a mercy. Sometimes it only reminded one of one's circumstances. This was a very merciless and deliberate sort of execution.The prisoner had been starved, until they were half out of their mind, almost beyond the point of reason, and then fed just enough blood to keep from reaching their second death, but not enough to sate any sort of hunger. Not enough to do anything with the Vitae.
They could still taste the blood, of course. More than that, of course, they could taste the gag. They could taste the strange poisons that the Dragon had put in them to keep them weak, and writhing, staked to the ground. Not even real stakes, not through the heart to post the prisoner in sleepless, dying torpor.
Instead, stakes driven through the hands, the feet, strong, sturdy rope that any clever vampire could have done something about… if they had the strength for it.
The Dragon is clever. So is the Prince.
The odds of anyone being there to hear the prisoner's cries was nonexistent. It didn't matter. (There would be no last confessions, no shadows to hear what words the prisoner has to say.)
There was a watch, carefully set so that the prisoner could see it. It was dirty, old, something that would be thrown away after. Was it fast? Was it slow? What mattered was that it was ticking. It was the only real sound, though once the sun did begin to rise, there'd be a serenade for the prisoner's death. Birdsong in morning.
It had been some time since the prisoner heard real birdsong in the morning, hadn't it?
Is this bad luck, or just desserts? Can you even tell the difference by now? The taste of the strange chemical concoctions is vile, is searing, it tastes… well it tastes like all food does compared to the sweetness, the richness, of blood. Vampires otherwise lacked taste, and not just because far too many had watched far too many vampire movies.
It was a strange jest, and a strange time to jest. The prisoner might have laughed every Night, with friends about the absurdities of some Kindred, or this might have been the closest to a joke they'd made in decades, in the privacy of their own minds. It all came to the same thing. A second death, the prospect of execution, they reduced one to nothing. Less than nothing. It made even the strongest being a coward, and pared away all of those niceties. How could you remember your favorite novel when there was no one but you here, when your story was about to end like this, in this desolate grove.
(Yet one had to try.)
It would hurt, oh it would hurt so completely and it wasn't a pain most could ever get used to. It was the kind of pain that obliterated the mind, the body, the soul, everything that made someone themselves.
But before obliteration, understanding. Before understanding, knowing. Before knowing, remembering. Before all that, the brute physical realities of Tonight. There's not much time left. You're not going to learn anything, but perhaps you can witness something. Perhaps you can glimpse in the long-past flash of fang and the slash of throat, in the rot of the earth and the turning of the seasons, something like sense.
Tick tock, goes the watch.
Time's running out for the prisoner.
Let's begin simple, what was the year the prisoner died for the first time? Can you remember that?
[] 1999, one decade after history failed to end.
[] 1954, as the cracks in the post-War consensus began to form.
[] 1932, the year of the Hoovervilles.
[] 1900, the start of a new century.
[] 1896, in which a cross of gold was erected.
The Laurent Presents: Movin' On Up--A Guide to Vimpiric Immigration and Migration (VTR)
Movin' On Up--A Guide To Vampiric Immigration and Migration (VTR)
Vampire the Requiem talks about two different sorts of vampires: those that stay in one place all the time, and those who are constant Nomads. But what about the un-people in between? In the Great Depression, did vampires search for better pastures? What did black vampires do when Kine that were in many cases their family moved up north during the Great Migration? When people move, so do vampires… and when individual people move, these same motives can convince a vampire to pack up and try it with another Prince, another Court.
This is all worldbuilding and headcanon. I can't promise you mechanics, it'd be silly. Of course, if you want your character to move to a new city in a Chronicle (or perhaps a Chronicle where you and a bunch of other migrants try to figure out some brand new city that's different than the one to know), you might roll at some point. But putting together a "Roll to know about a new city" check seems liable to just fall right into the talons of a player who, ala how high Occult can allow you to suss out five different splats in six seconds, just cheeses it.
So, this will all be narrative, and I'll be outlining things in a few sections. First, migrations with a group, or migrations that parallel human migratory patterns. Second, the whys and how's of individual movement. Third, a brief section on, "Going on business trips." Finally, some guides to how a ST or Player might do something with all of this.
Side-Note: I have not in fact read Nomads. From the description I was able to drag up, it seems to be about people who make a lifestyle of traveling. Most of the kinds of vampires I'm thinking about might change locales once in their entire Requiem. John Jacobson, JJ, moved north with his father's congregation, against his Sire's will, to Chicago in 1920. Eighty years later, the potent Lancea Regent still sticks around in Chicago, ruling that certain predominately African-American churches are sacred ground, in which nobody can control the minds, bodies, or blood of any within it. He's not likely to ever leave his new home willingly.
Mass Migration and Vampires
In days long past, most people migrated at least a little. When you chase a Mammoth herd, when you're following the seasonal patterns of a bunch of animals, you move. If vampires existed back then, they moved too, because the Kindred have a herd too. People. People are people everywhere, but when they move, whether all at once or as part of an obvious, years-long pattern, vampires have reasons to move with them. Some of them involve affection, some power, and some even familiarity. Most of these trips are one way, by and large.
As will be the norm for these sections, we'll be looking at it in three categories: Neonate, Ancilla, and Elder.
Neonate
They're the humanity story, most often. A (1920s) vampire that was just turned, and whose sister (perhaps even mechanically their Touchstone) and her mister and their baby that he's a godfather of all pack up to leave to Chicago, where at least occasionally African-Americans might be treated as human beings by accident, really has no choice. Either he stays as all the people he still cares about leave, or he goes along with them and takes risks shockingly similar to the ones they're making.
Will they find jobs? Will he find hunting grounds open to him?
And like them, he probably susses it out. African-Americans in the Great Migration read the Chicago Defender, they sent letters to family already there asking how it was. If the Neonate knows any Kindred who has already gone to Chicago, perhaps they can send him coded (hopefully truthful) information about whether the Prince is a tyrant, whether he holds racist views like a disturbing number of vampires in his hometown, and so on. Even then, it's always, always a leap of faith.
Neonates also migrate when there's no other choices. The powerful elders of a city soon to be conquered can perhaps make a deal with the vampires that come with the conquerors. Many elder Vampires in Saigon found ways to adjust to the influx of communist-inspired vampires seeking to control the city. Neonates, on the other hand, are small enough to die in little and big ways. When an entire people flee, so do the vampires, closer to them both emotionally and in terms of power.
Finally, Neonates might mass-migrate because of another: any Ancilla or Elder with a childer who moves, for reasons discussed below, might well take them along with them, the same way you'd pack all your bags first. Such young Neonates might resent it as much as any child would a similar move, away from all of their friends. But such is Tonight.
Ancilla
Their story is the power story. Ancilla usually have deep ties into the area they live, or at least the people, but they're likely too old for anyone to really remember them from before their Requiem firsthand. They're less likely to be fleeing north from racism, or migrating across the U.S. border just because they want a chance at better wages. No, Ancilla have power, and if they don't they want power.
The Ancilla that traveled with the "barbarian" tribes that conquered the "glory" that was Rome stayed when the tribes stayed, and made the cities and towns their own. When an entire congregation that a Lancea Mekhet had under his thumb ups and moves to Detroit, there goes one of the many power bases that he used in his bid to become Prince. Why not follow, and arrive with a herd, a line of credit in blood and money, to entice the local Prince to let you rise?
Ancilla leave because the herd is leaving, which sounds like the same sort of motivations that most Neonates have, but is subtly different: it's less often about individual bonds, and more about familiarity. There are exceptions: just as it's theoretically possible to be a high-humanity elder, perhaps this Ancilla does have deep and strong-rooted ties. But few enough do, and they have a lot more to lose than a Neonate does, all things considered.
Elders
Rare is the elder who moves just because the Kine is, excepting the case of a city dying the kind of death that cannot be recovered from. The Kine come, the Kine go, and there will always be blood for those powerful enough to seize it. Besides, an Elder usually has a very comfortable power base, and the ability to exploit it even if it's leaving. If an Elder with deep influences in the local African-American community during the 1920s notices the Great Migration, perhaps she even aids these migrants… in exchange for favors and power back home. Perhaps she encourages troublesome subordinates threatening to overthrow her to instead move north, leaving her safe and sound.
Other than by deliberate exile, which is not the topic of this document, it's more a matter of what an Elder will stand. They are rigid in their ways, often enough.
Perhaps the highly pious Jewish Elder is willing to take a chance packing up and moving to Jerusalem after WWII, sure that this State of Israel has a larger destiny that he must be part of.
Another example is Gin, a Regent in San Francisco. An ardent hater of western values, he interpreted the communism of North Vietnam as a personal affront, and when Saigon fell, he was far too outspoken, and eventually chose to immigrate with his childer and retainers, to America. It was not quite an exile, and his destination had far less to do with his inclinations, and far more to do with the movements of the Kine. Once there, he quickly established himself as a power to be reckoned with, but his disdain for Americans in general and particular has won him few friends outside the community, and so while he was second-in-command of the Kindred of Saigon, he's a relatively weak regent. Yet, by the standards of most elders forced to move in that manner, he's been wildly successful.
Like a plant transplanted to uncertain, non-native soil, whether an elder can survive the transition, even without the hostile political environment they might find themselves in, is often up in the air.
Individual Vampire Migration
People move. It's in their nature. They hear of a good new job the next town over, they move to the big city to pursue an acting career, they start dating someone from halfway across the state… even in the distant past, people circulated. The "middle ages" were not an era of serfs who spent their whole lives on one plot of ground, despite stereotypes. Even if only temporarily, they fled their homes, went on pilgrimages, poached in off-limits forests, or went to the next village over…
Vampires were people, once, and in that way it's not surprising. Individuals leave for all sorts of reasons, including in cases where the general feeling is: "You can't cast me out, I'm leaving!"
Neonates
These are the teeming masses of the vampire world, and again the ones most connected to human motives. If their human lover, the touchstone of their mortality, goes off to college in another state, their only real options are to find a way to force them to stay, or to go along with them. Letting them leave would be devastating for a vampire still clinging to their humanity.
Or perhaps they hate their real parents, and want to be as far away as possible so they don't have to explain away all the signs of their vampirism. No doubt the bastard would assume they were on drugs, and start calling them at all hours, ranting about how kids these days don't work hard enough. Best to just cut ties… if you're able.
Because, of course, a Neonate is most likely to be deep in the sway of someone else, and without the power or resources to buy them off. Running from a hostile Sire is certainly one way to leave a city, and might even be the initial reason, but they best go far and find a new patron of one kind or another soon, or it could end very badly.
Another cause of moving has to do with just that. Sometimes a Neonate is frustrated not with a Sire, but with a tyrannical or restrictive (for good reasons and bad reasons) Prince. One could hang on, and plot for decades to unseat them, or they could just move. Obviously, if one is going to move, they'd need news of whether where they were moving was any better. These rumors aren't always accurate, and even 'good' Princes might not like outsiders moving in… or it might be just what they need. Grateful immigrants have always been a source of support for some.
Either way, these personal escapes often represent a sort of rebellion equal to that of the serf who runs for the freedom of the city. With some exceptions, most Princes and Kindred have a policy of 'you lost it, you deal with it.' If a Neonate escapes to their city, makes an unlife there, and finds a powerful patron, a Prince is unlikely to be swayed by demands that this Neonate be declared outcast, just because some angry Sire couldn't keep control of her childer. After all, he would keep his childer well in hand.
Ancilla
While an Ancilla can leave for all of the same reasons as a Neonate above, there's another common reason: frustrated ambition. An Ancilla who feels exploited and taken advantage of might begin to plot not for revolution, but to unwind and pay their quasi-feudal debts and get out of dodge with a suitcase of money and some likely Prince willing to have them. Ancilla are less likely to leave without warning, because they have more to lose, and more to owe. But at times their departure can be accepted, because of course when they leave, any territory or positions they have become open to be divvied out.
One other thing drives Ancilla away, the opposite of a Neonate's drive: the loss of a connection. When an Ancilla's childhood home is demolished, when their last relative dies in a car crash, some Ancilla start thinking about how to move, to escape from the pain in time and space alike. These Ancilla deal with separation by making sure to leave it all behind. Is it wise? No, but it's understandable.
SIDEBAR--Poaching
In this World of Darkness, Vampires from different cities struggle to communicate consistently. Certainly, no vampire Prince can put out a full page banner ad in a newspaper to try to lure Kindred from one city to their own. However, word does get out, and some Princes do spend resources, or send agents, when they hear of an unpopular Prince, or one who oppresses some particularly Covenant or Clan that the Prince is more favorable towards. Only rarely, in an absolute sense, are rewards reaped from this.
Even if an Elder or Ancilla agrees to move, the local Kindred are usually leery of having to share the city with yet more competition.
However, there can certainly be advantages to be had by poaching, and it's against no binding rules, as long as you aren't caught… or if you're caught, as long as there's nothing the other Prince can do to stop you.
Most 'poachings' are accidental, or the result of a snap decision by a Prince who hears of trouble a city over. Rare is the Prince who has a member of their court dedicated even to intercity diplomacy, let alone the dangerous task of luring away powerful vampires from Princes who, in many cases, would reward the Ancilla or Elder for refusing… and bringing the emissary to Elysium for a polite 'chat.'
*****
Elder
Rare is the Elder who leaves except in a high dudgeon. Sometimes they swear they will return, shouting or publishing or spreading speeches of dissent and rebellion as they flee. At times they return and successfully overthrow the Prince, and at times they instead find themselves in self-imposed exile, in some foreign city where they might not fit. However, their power and experience mean that they can sometimes land on their feet, and they're the most common target for poaching.
Each case is individual, but rather representative is what happened with the powerful Dragon scientist, who goes by the rather self-centered name Lamarck. He was engaging in experiments that involved the deaths of dozens and dozens of Kine in a matter of months, and some newly- Embraced Kindred, with the approval of a decadent Invicticus Prince who sought to use his research. After said Prince was replaced with an Invictus Reformer, just barely heading off a Carthian Revolution, the funds were suddenly unavailable. If Lamarck gets his way, the Prince claims, there won't be any Kine left to rule over or feed off of, and so he was forbidden from continuing his experiments, and removed from power.
As a compromise, he was not yet exiled… but of course he did it himself, when a Prince from several cities over promised that there'd be no such petty scruples standing in the way of true science of the blood, that he'd provide even more funding and support to Lamarck, and open up a nearby prison for his exclusive use. This was far too tempting, and he left to commit mass-murder and crimes against humanity in some other city. Which suits most of the city-- barring justice-hungry Carthians--just fine. He's someone else's problem now.
Vampire's Holiday--Temporary Trips
While the lines the Kindred draw are usually small, the lines modern business, and for that matter, modern crime, draw are far larger. Often a Kindred finds a need to visit some particular city, and some cities that are known as centers of trade, transportation, or business even have procedures in place for visiting Kindred.
"Visiting Kindred are to stay in the Grande Hotel, and must pay for any Vitae they take, to be hunted for them by the staff," is a relatively common Princely law, repeated with variations across dozens of cities. It's best not to let a foreign vampire stumble across the entire city through a dozen hostile territories, if you want Kindred 'abroad' to do business with you.
The Prince or some loyal vassal no doubt owns the hotel mentioned above, and thus profit from seeing it used, and there's every excuse to charge a premium for blood. The visiting vampire is generally willing to play along, since the alternative could end in their untimely death, and requires extensive knowledge of the lines and feeding locations of another city.
Of course, some Princes kill all outsiders, and drive away anyone who tries to visit, yet alone live there. But it's not truly a winning strategy for most Princes, and so as long as humans are interconnected, so too will vampires go from one Princedom to another temporarily.
Neonates
Neonates are the ones least likely to have business of their own, excepting of course PCs that might hit above their age. When your Lord tells them to visit a port city and bring back one of the girls he knows have recently been smuggled into the city from another country, you pack up and go visit, and hope you can get back with his expensive new Blood Doll alive. Creepy fucker says that foreign blood just tastes better. Similarly, one might run drugs, bodyguard an important Kine asset on a necessary business trip, or otherwise do whatever is needed to do.
This is very dangerous in all sorts of ways. Storytellers, as I'll outline later, should never make it feel safe. There's not even a chance, as with migration, of making this new city your own, and thus getting used to it. The local Kindred hopefully respect your Sire's name, but probably not enough to spare you if you break some grand taboo you hear about just moments after you break it. Local gangsters have no reason to fear you without evidence of your prowess, you know none of the dividing lines between where a Ventrue should and shouldn't be, and you usually have very little in the way of pull.
In their home city, a POC Neonate pulled over by leering cops looking to charge them for Drivin' While Black merely needs to mention "Mr. Hill" and suddenly it'll be as if every sensitivity training lesson they'd ever slept through had been imprinted on their souls. Whoever Mr. Hill is in this new city definitely isn't named "Mr. Hill." This applies to basically every facet of interacting with authorities, official or otherwise. Blind eyes aren't turned, unless the Neonate has local Kindred allies to help turn them.
It's no wonder that most Neonates dread such tasks, and seek to get in and out as fast as possible. Some Sires and Lords even use it as a sort of lesson: after seeing what it's like to be in a foreign city (even if this 'foreign' city is just a few hours' drive away), many Neonates known to grumble (they thought in private) about how bad and oppressive their home was gain a new appreciation for it.
Ancilla
Sometimes Ancilla are sent on the same tasks as Neonates, but when they are they usually have staff, allies, perhaps even concrete ties, as with a regular supplier of drugs for a gang in her home city that her powerful Regent Sire supports. They have more support, they have more backup… but it also makes them a very, very valid target. Neonates are too, but an Neonate is assumed to know nothing, and if targeted on a trip abroad, at least can look forward to the mercy of a quick death if such is in the cards. An Ancilla caught out between rival factions might long for just such a grace.
Of course, there's also more to gain. Perhaps on one business trip or another (including one's own business) they visit a city with relaxed rules. Less restrictions on Crone worship, or on hunting a particular type of prey that the Prince, remembering her past, forbids feeding upon. It can be a regular holiday, if holidays came with the distinct chance of death or dismemberment.
Which for the Kindred, they do.
Elder
Elder business can include cutting sharp deals with Princes, tracking down wayward childer, and even just deciding to play tourist. An Elder has many responsibilities, but often quite a lot of power to go along with all of it. Elder are often inscrutable for that matter, and a visit by an Elder from another city could be a big deal. Do they have some grand plan? Are they a threat? Will they snap necks and drink Kindred blood just for fun? Everyone knows what those vampires from the next city over are like, after all!
An Elder vampire on holiday, or on business, is fearsome indeed, and not to be trusted.
Storytelling Migration Tales
All of this, while interesting worldbuilding, is useless if it can't be used by any Storytellers. So what's the point of doing all of this? What does it mean?
Another equally important question is: how common is immigration of vampires? The default answer this entire section has been based around is the idea that, like in V:TR's base game, it's very rare. Most Vampires are Embraced and die their second death in the same city. Most of the time, exile can be a death sentence even still, since all the above migrations are, usually, planned. But, even though migration is difficult for Vampires… it's difficult for everyone.
What is often most horrifying or tragic about Vampires is what is most human about them. Throughout history, humans have faced great obstacles to escape terrible circumstances in the hope, often in vain, that their destination is better than where they were. Many operated on less information and fewer assurances than Vampires Tonight have, but even for modern people in affluent countries, moving can be socially and economically risky. You sever ties with one community for another, and while many people move in search of a promised job, what if the job doesn't pan out? In the World of Darkness, these worries are likely even greater, since disconnected people in a new city have even more monsters, human and otherwise, that would love to help them disappear. Even so, people move.
The themes of a chronicle involving any of the above are threefold: Hope, Desperation, and the Unknown. Few vampires, excepting flighty elders, flee a city for another unless they are both desperate and hopeful. It takes dire circumstances to uproot your entire unlife, and yet there are better and worse cities. Every Kindred knows the story of a just and fair Prince, even if only one and a thousand fit that even five days at a time. Every Kindred also knows that there are Princes that make the average corrupt tyrant look like a benevolent, heartfelt patron of goodness and light. Every Kindred has ties to others that can drag them from one place to another. These are familiar urges, and thus familiar things that the powerful in any city might watch for, if they don't want to lose any Kindred. Sometimes escape can be fatal.
This should help connect with the players, even those who have lived their whole lives in a single city.
All one can do is cast themselves into the unknown, and when one's visiting, there's all that fear of the unknown, of strange vampires, stranger monsters, and strangest customs to bring you down. But even if you have fifteen coded letters from a fellow Childer of the same Sire, all of which rave about how well Crones have it in a particular city, who's to say it's not a trap and they haven't already faced their Final Death, and are now being used to lure Crones to the witches' pyre? Even if it's them, and they're being honest, what if they were merely lucky? What if the Prince, tolerant of the Crones already there, doesn't want any more?
It's the risk that makes it real, and that's where the horror comes in. If the Chronicle involves trying to escape a tyrannical Prince, keep on upping the risk of their plans being discovered, Storytellers. If they're put in charge of security for a visiting elder making an arcane deal with the Prince, ask whether this elder might not do things differently back home… differently in ways that put the Coterie at risk.
If your Coterie's transition to a new city looks like checking out apartment ads, sending an email to the local Prince who goes, "Sure, go ahead, buddy, I'll roll out the red carpet" and this isn't way too good to be true, then you've passed up a lot of narrative chances.
Storytellers are encouraged to use real stories of immigration, fiction, nonfiction, and historical, as a guide not only to storylines, but to understanding the emotional resonance of such stories, which can be powerful indeed. Every year Americans celebrate a fictionalized version of Pilgrim survival, refer to the city on a hill, or demonize (or valorize) immigrants. Even abroad, immigration is a major political, cultural and social issue, and much of the world consists of immigrants or their close descendents.
All of that said, here are some story beats/ideas
*If you want an excuse for Coterie to know nothing about the local politics, so that you can show off the twists and turns without a player with high Politics going, "Oh, I figured that out offscreen before the game started" then having them be immigrants could be a bit of a power move. Are they trusted? Who helped bring them there? Do they owe anyone for their arrival, a contract and debt to pay off, in blood and service? Go from there!
*Your Coterie wants to escape a tyrannical city. It's entirely possible to make an entire Chronicle based around trying to plot and scheme and hunt for the right city to relocate, all while evading notice.
*Vinny, the Prince's stupid but beloved childer, went missing on a routine diplomatic mission to a nearby city. Now your Coterie is tasked with bringing him back intact, and if they can't, getting revenge on whoever did it… even if it means starting a war with the local Prince, if they were behind it.
*It's just a routine milk-run to pick up some drugs, exchange some artifacts the Mekhet Lord wants to trade away before the Lancea Prince notices them, and then return home. How hard could it be?
*Some new Vampires into town, fresh off the boat, having snuck in and hidden among the trafficked women, need to be caught up to speed. Either help while they're still vulnerable, or exploit them while they still might not know what's up and what's down.
*Your flighty Elder sire has expressed a sudden desire to pack everything up (including you) and skip town. What do you do?!
* A friend you keep in contact with (the joys of the internet, although you have to hint and dance around anything even related to both being Kindred, and speak in code at all times) suddenly expresses a desire to live in your city, and asks you to help arrange things on that side.
*Conversely, you travel to a new city a friend has been urging you into, only to find that they've been dead for over a year, but now you've burned all your bridges behind you and have to unravel their death, thwart the tyrannous designs of Lords and Princes, and survive to make a new home in a hostile land. Good luck!
*Any sort of historical game could include these elements! Or, for that matter, you could include characters who are partially defined by having moved. That much, at least, is in the game itself: ancient vampires do sometimes wind up in New York, very much not an ancient city at all. A vampire defined by their immigration, nostalgia for the past, or even ongoing Kine and Kindred 'constituency' based on these past migrations is a common and rich set of possibilities.
*Your Coterie is tasked with stopping some vampires from leaving the city, by any means necessary, up to and including bringing them to their Final Death… but the Prince would prefer it be more subtle, so that he can use their talents again.
******
A/N: So, this was all sorta written in the span of literally just today, starting about twelve hours ago and ending now. So if it has typos, I apologize, but I kinda just wanted to throw it out to the world to be critiqued. Please, comment on it. Point out typos, even, at least if you also comment in general. This was a lot of work, and a lot of brainbugs excised all at once.
So yeah, this is now done at 8 PM on a Monday. We'll see if there's any obvious typos to find tomorrow morning, then I'll release it. So yay!
The Seers Servitors: The Unfated (Fate/Time Ministries)
Exarchs that follow either The Ruin or The Prophet, and the ministries based on these concepts, can potentially gain access to these highly valued servants. Their greatest ability--the ability all the lesser beings should have before the Great Men who truly decide all of history--is their invisibility. They cannot be seen through prophecy, and attempts to establish Temporal sympathy with them always fail. In fact, they are not merely invisible to it, but unable to themselves understand what fate and destiny truly are. Such servants are created by a difficult process that scours them, burning off and then restoring their destiny and ties to fate so many times that at last it cannot be repaired.
In order to best train these fateless beings, whose trauma almost always pushes them into becoming Sleepwalkers, most Seer Pylons that specialize in their creation take them from a young age, but not birth: a child of six or seven is usually the perfect age to shape and mold. They are more likely than the average ex-Sleeper to develop various non-Supernal psychic powers, and as Sleepwalkers they can see, hold, and be openly subject to all manner of magic from their Seer masters.
A Bore is named so because the process that sears their Fate and makes them invisible to time also makes it hard for them to stand out: they never find themselves getting exceptionally lucky, and history has a way of ignoring them: a rogue Unfated could murder a nation's president and find that somehow someone else was credited with the deed: they are not one of the Great Men, and so they do not have a voice in history, and struggle to understand the chance, contingency, and destiny that others--even those without a destiny--are part of.
However, this makes them very hard to track, if you can hide the physical signs and calm and clear the mind. Most often, the Seers who engage with the process--and they keep it hidden to increase the 'market value' of their services--also train the Unfated as a spy, assassin, or courier.
They have no special mental control over their creations, beyond what their abusive and cult-like indoctrination and training generally achieves--and whatever magic can do--but having been stolen from their lives and fundamentally scarred in a way that they might never recover from, it isn't surprising that few have anywhere else to go.
Game Systems
Arcana-Less: The Fate and Time Arcana cannot affect them directly. If you set up bad luck in an area and they're passing through they might incidentally get hit with a falling brick, but any attempt to target them or see them through Fate or Time fails, and fails utterly. At times this can--for a clever Mage who knows what to look for--make it easier to find them, if you can tell where there's a void that shouldn't be, but most Unfated have learned to be very clever about their acts.
Half-Blind: They struggle to connect to people in some fundamental ways. When in an environment devoted to time--ancient dig sites, museums--or to the randomness of chance (such as casinos), reduce their Presence, Manipulation, and Composure by 1. Some of them desperately want to get it, but most of them truly can't. All the worse if they can--as some do--remember a time when chance, luck, and the endless expanse of history made sense.
Scar Tissue: Despite being bizarrely--and sickeningly--free of being able to truly be touched by two of the Arcana, they are in a way sensitive to it: they can tell when anyone attempts to see them in the past, view their nonexistent fates, or otherwise interact with them with Time or Fate. This manifests as a sort of painful, even brutally disgusting, mental itching. In theory a Mage could cast dozens of Fate spells upon them, each doing nothing in truth, but driving them quite up a wall.
A Trained Person: This is not inherent to them: in theory a Seer could do the process on an adult and then leave them to make their way in the world. But practically speaking, unless they go rogue, every Unfated is either a spy, an assassin, or a courier. Their masters tend to ensure that they become a peerless one, or die in the process. For every Untamed that survives the brutal, potentially mind-destroying torture and supernal and sub-supernal alteration involved in their creation, and the years or decades of training that follows, a dozen or more die. And the creators of the Untamed are just fine with that: after all, scarcity breeds value.
Story Hooks
--A rogue Unfated approaches a Consilium, speaking of a plan to destroy it. But does he really mean it, or is he an enemy agent? He seems earnest, but minds can be wiped blank, and not just by Supernal magic, and without being able to read his future and his Fate, it can be hard to be sure.
--A maddened, desperate Untamed searches--between jobs for the Seers--for an Archmage of legend that is said to be able to restore the Fates of those like her. Before her surprisingly late 'recruiment' at ten, she says she was a lover of history and someone with a powerful Destiny that the Seers stole. Can they truly do that? Just steal destinities? And what are the hopes of the Untamed finding what she seeks?
--Your Cabal has made the wrong enemy, and now this Acanthus-heavy group has to deal with armed, fate-invisible assassins that seem to remorselessly chase after them, always in the right place to take the shots, and unwilling to give up.
******
A/N: Each of the four major Seer ministries has special Foot Soldiers, and I thought of an idea for one for The Ruin and/or The Prophet. At the baseline, this is a grudging collaboration for the methods. But that can change.
Also, not sure what the dot cost for a Seer player to 'have' one of these people are, someone else can figure that out if interested.
I'm not sure if this should theoretically or metaphysically be possible, but there was one form of these Servitors that was made by a Lower Depths being that basically stripped them of their minds and turned them into empty dolls. I keep the process vague to allow people to fit their lore into it, but if it's too vague I can become more specific.
So, due to a complex series of circumstances I ended up basically writing up mechanics for playing a character from the Weather Factory game Cultist Simulator
in Chronicles of Darkness.
Now, I know we have more than enough cultists around these parts, but if nothing else Cultist Simulator has a strong atmosphere and thematics to it. Characters begin as something closest to mortal occultists, but through dedication to the secret Principles of the world, and exploration of the Mansus - sometimes called the House of the Sun - which stands in dreams and perhaps service to the Hours, the secret gods which dwell there, they can become rather more than merely mortal.
The core of the thing is playable, but I need ideas for Merits and rituals to flesh it out more, as well as general second opinions on mechanics. I'm more than happy to discuss it here or in the CultSim Discord, and to field ideas.
If you're at all interested, please take a look at the document linked here, and leave comments or posts on the thread.
So, over the last week I've been doing a minor project of my own over on the Onyx Path forums, and I'm gonna post the results of that here! I wrote one Relic for Mummy: the Curse 2e each day, moving through the six types (Amulets, Effigies, Regia, Texts, Uter and Seba, using my own rules for the latter), and then did a free choice one at the end. So, without further ado, I present
Said to be the source of the legend in which the goddess Demeter attempted to burn away the mortality of an infant prince, this relic takes the form of a stone hearth carved from a single block of dense sandstone, with every inch of the outside engraved with densely-packed lettering in archaic Greek script. The internal parts of the hearth are, on closer examination, composed of glass and subtly melted, as if a tremendous heat had vitrified the stone. There is just enough space inside for a person to stand with a fire built around their feet.
Power: A fire stoked in the hearth burns without smoke or other exudation or waste; even ashes are consumed. A mortal who enters the hearth while it is burning will find the flames rising higher and higher around them, blazing a pure magnesium-white. The flame inflicts 1 Aggravated damage per round to mortals, and 3 Aggravated damage per round to mummies.
However, by following the descriptions written on the Hearth (requiring first that those instructions be deciphered, the purchase of certain herbs and substances from Greece costing Resources 4, or Resources 3 while in or near Greece, and a successful Intelligence + Occult roll to perform the preparations properly), a concoction can be made which is fed to a mortal, before they pass into the flame. The mortal must suffer at least 3 Aggravated damage for each 'session' (requiring a successful Composure + Stamina roll with a -4 penalty to resist throwing themselves out of the fire each time, unless they are prevented from doing so). Each session constitutes a -2 Breaking Point, but provides one of the following benefits:
+1 to an Attribute, to a maximum of 6. (May be taken twice)
Skin becomes 1/1 natural armor, which stacks with worn armor. (May be taken once)
The Regenerate Numen, with the cost replaced with 1 Willpower (May be taken once)
Gain 1 Pillar dot, with an associated Pillar point. This point can only be regenerated according to the rules for meditation. Once this has been taken, the mortal may manifest Soul Affinities as if she were a Sadikh. (May be taken twice, no more than once per Pillar)
The Striking Looks Merit, at 2 dots (May be taken once)
A single character may bear no more than Integrity - 3 such benefits at a time, but may plunge into the fire once more to change an existing benefit for another. If a character loses Integrity, she decides which benefit is lost. A character who undergoes this transformation successfully always heals perfectly from the horrific burns the process inflicts, with skin bronzed as if by a natural tan. This same process also seems to erase many forms of minor physical markings or defects, like moles, old scars or similar. Many emerge from the fires of transformation entirely hairless, their body smooth as a living statue.
Curse: Though its powers to uplift mortals are nothing short of miraculous, the Eleusinian Hearth is imperfect. Its flames consume more than mortality; they consume memory. For each 'session' a character endures within the flames of the Eleusinian Hearth, they suffer the Persistent Amnesia condition with regards to some significant aspect of their life. With each further session, the consumption of their memory grows, though it never consumes any point after their first successful session in the Hearth. A person who uses the Hearth enough times will recall nothing at all before their 'rebirth'.
Mummies have sufficient skill with the occult principles required to prepare a person for the flames of transformation that the degree of memory consumed is lessened; perhaps a person forgets an old college acquaintance, rather than a close friend. The Mesen-Nebu have perfected these preparations almost completely, allowing them to negate the memory loss entirely if they achieve an Exceptional Success in the preparations.
The Wilkinson Shekel (Effigy •••) - Thursday 7th Oct Durability 2, Size 1, Structure 3
An ancient silver coin found in the ruins of Tyre in the 1800s by tourist and amateur archaeologist Lawrence Wilkinson. The coin is a little more than an inch in diameter, and unusually thick, embossed on one side with the image of a face which does not match any known king or emperor, and on the other with a serpentine figure identified with the god Yam, a Canaanite god of seas and rivers. It was sold at auction after the son of the original Wilkinson died in a botched robbery, and has passed through many hands since, all of which it has enriched. Amongst the Arisen who know of it, some wonder if it represents an attempt by the coin's unknown maker, or even the Tef-Aabhi themselves, to grasp at the secrets of Dedwen held by the guild of alchemists.
Power: Acting as proof of the saying 'You need money to make money', the Shekel acts like a gravity well for fortune and wealth. Fate seems to conspire to magnify the holder's coffers, increasing her Resources Merit by 1 dot per week, to a maximum of three additional dots, to a maximum of 5. Such is her luck with money that she really can make a living off of lottery tickets, or gets called by the one get-rich-quick scheme that isn't a scam. If the Shekel leaves her possession, the money leaves at the same rate it arrived, as investments go bad and her luck with the lottery runs out.
Curse: Ostentatious wealth draws envy and desire, and the Shekel's curse is that it weakens its holder's defenses against such things. For every dot of Resources the Shekel provides, a dot in a Merit representing some protection the user has against theft is rendered inert. This usually targets Safe Place, Alternate Identity or Anonymity, but it may include Enigma, dots of Peril in a tomb, and similar. The Storyteller chooses which dots are rendered inert. Such dots are not permanently lost, normally returning at the same rate the extra Resources dots are lost upon loss of the Shekel. However, the user may choose to lose them permanently, converting them into Experience. Mummies suffer one less dot of loss than others would (e.g. only 2 dots of protective Merits for 3 bonus Resources dots), while mummies of the Tef-Aabhi suffer no loss at all.
Written by the composer and reputed magician Emil Hugo Melsbach in the early 1900s, Zeitfenster ('Windows of Time') was written for a sextet of violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and French horn. It has a chaotic sound that few have described as pleasant, but is undoubtedly a work of musical genius. Each instrument's sound depicts a period of time, from the beginning of the universe to antiquity to the modern day, and can be played alone for a pleasant enough tune, but when all six are played together, the sounds clash, diverge and recombine to form a chaotic crescendo which reveals greater patterns. The original folio is yellowed and dog-eared, but quite readable, and able to be easily split into its six component parts.
It was only performed once for a full theater audience, and never again, as listeners complained of bizarre hallucinations, and many suffered mental breakdowns afterwards. Zeitfenster became a minor legend in the musical community, but Melsbach himself never saw it, as he vanished without a trace soon after the initial performance. According to the rumors, he was working on another piece of music, Türen von Weltall when he disappeared.
Power:Zeitfenster is not idly named. When a part of the music is played from the original copy, one person listening will experience hallucinatory visions. These are disorienting, but can provide insight into far-off times; the listener must state a number of questions about the past, and roll Wits + Composure to interpret these visions. For each success, one question is answered. Any successes over the number of chosen questions are lost, and once a question has been asked, whether it is answered or not, it can never be asked against by that person. These questions are limited in scope if only part of the music is played, depending on what instrument is used:
Violin: Questions must concern the prehistoric world, before three thousand years ago.
Viola: Questions must concern the prehistoric world, before the arising of humankind.
Cello: Questions must concern the primordial world, before the Earth was fully-formed.
Flute: Questions must concern the last ten years.
Clarinet: Questions must concern the last hundred years, but no closer than ten years.
French Horn: Questions must concern the last three thousand years, but no closer than one hundred years.
If all six instruments are played together, the entirety of the past is open to questions, and all listeners experience the Relic's effects. Only very few things are concealed from the visions the music provokes: Fate will not reveal its deep workings, and may choose on occasion to hide other things besides. The workings of the divine are likewise hidden, as are those things banished from the world, like Irem, or other realms of existence, or places warded from magical scrying and intrusion. The geomancy of a mummy's Tomb snarls time and Fate such that the visions cannot penetrate. Finally, Fate only allows so much prying into its records; Zeitfenster can only be played properly once per week. If it is played again during this time, it is 'merely' mundane music.
Curse: By listening to Zeitfenster, a person exposes their minds to the vast breadth and width of time's river, and it is easy to become lost in the flow. All characters who suffer the visions inflicted by the music suffer the Persistent Madness Condition. Mummies, their minds inured to the weight of ages, may roll Memory to resist, while the Sesha-Hebsu are immune.
The Pendant of Voices (Amulet •) - Saturday 9th Oct. Durability 2, Size 1, Structure 3
The origin of this amulet is unclear, but rumor associates it with the Elizabethan lady and spy Ester Danet, though all tales agree that she received it from another - who, how, why and where vary from telling to telling. As the story goes, she uncovered more than a few plots against the Crown, but eventually grew so afraid of others spying on her that she locked herself in her chambers. Some tales end there, saying that she eventually recovered and returned to her courtly life, while the more colorful claim she ordered herself to be bricked up, save for a small slot for food and water, so that she would be safe from her enemies. Others say that her immurement was not her own will at all - that she learned a secret her masters did not wish her to tell.
Whatever the case, the Relic which is said by some to have precipitated these events takes the form of a pale opal the size of a quail's egg in a silver setting, with a small loop at the top to accommodate a chain, though it has been worn as a pendant, a brooch and sometimes simply kept in a pocket. In a quiet room, especially in darkness or moonlight, those nearby sometimes claim to hear a faint whispering sound, as if many people were speaking softly together, or the sound of cloth shifting at a little distance.
Power: If the wearer touches another person while wearing the pendant, she may spend a point of Willpower to leave a small, pale mark upon them, like a white scar a few millimeters across. This mark lasts indefinitely, but disappears if until the wearer loses the pendant. At any point thereafter, the wearer may raise the pendant to her ear and choose a mark they have laid to listen as if from the point of the mark. If the mark is covered, sound maybe muffled or indistinct.
This ability has become slightly obsolete, in this modern age of ubiquitous surveillance and miniaturized microphones, but in its day it was a miraculous tool, and it still has its utility as a nearly-untraceable method of eavesdropping.
Curse: As her ability to spy on others grows, so too does the user's paranoia about spies upon her. The wearer gains the persistent Delusional Condition, with regards to the idea that those around her are spying on her for their own reasons. The reasons she rationalizes do not have to be malevolent. Mummies only suffer this Condition in scenes in which they lay a new mark upon someone, and the Maa-Kep do not suffer it at all - they are used to the idea of watching and being watched.
Marks of the Beast-Blood (Seba •••) - Sunday 10th Oct.
The Keeper sought and taught the mysteries within, and brought forth this secret from the scarred flesh of a disciple, cutting him with knife and nail and hand into a shape that recalled an ancestry both bestial and numinous.
Power: Upon binding this Seba, the bearer collapses in painful convulsions, suffering the Insensate Tilt for a minute as its power draws out forgotten potence from their blood, bone and spirit. Once this process is complete, and so long as they remain in possession of the Seba, their being extends into Twilight in the form of an eldritch part-beast, part-monster, about which there are the faintest hints of lupine ancestry, scattered amongst constellations of eyes and protean limbs. This strange other-flesh is as much a part of their body as their physical form, and affords them the following abilities:
They can perceive and physically interact with the ghostly and spiritual frequencies of Twilight and the beings therein.
They can articulate the First Tongue of spirits, though they do not instinctively know it.
They add an additional die to rolls made with physical Attributes or Wits when interacting with Twilight.
They can perceive the presence of the Claimed and Possessed Conditions, seeing inhabiting entities nestling within their hosts.
Their unarmed attacks against beings in Twilight are treated as 1L weapons with no Initiative penalty. These attacks deal Lethal damage to ephemeral beings.
The bearer may spend 1 Willpower to draw their other-flesh partly into the physical world for the scene, allowing them to benefit from the dice and weapon bonuses it provides against physical targets. This makes it partially visible and entirely tangible to those present, particularly in the moments where the bearer uses their other-flesh actively, constituting a -1 Breaking Point for most mortals.
Additionally, if the bearer is at a Locus, they may spend 1 Willpower and make a Resolve + Composure roll with a penalty equal to the local Gauntlet strength - 2. On a success, the bearer may cross the Gauntlet and enter the Shadow, or leave the Shadow and enter the physical realm again. While in the Shadow, the bearer's other-flesh lays around her, manifest at all times, and she enjoys all of its benefits.
Curse: The Keeper's wisdom is never kind, and this cuts to the bone. During the process of transformation, the other-flesh bursts out of the body like a flower blooming, inflicting 6 - Stamina Aggravated damage, minimum 1. Furthermore, though these wounds heal, the anchorage of the other-flesh places stress on the body and confuses the nervous system. Once per session, the Storyteller may inflict the Seizure Tilt on the bearer, with a Potency of 4. Finally, if the character loses the Seba by any means, they suffer the same damage and Tilt as when they gained it, as their other-flesh painfully sloughs away.
Mummies, having bodies composed more of dust and necromancy than flesh, do not suffer the nervous difficulties associated with the Seba, while do not suffer the damage and Tilt upon binding it.
Description: Your body rebels against you, your nervous system firing chaotically.
Effect: Roll Stamina + Composure. Each success subtracts 1 from the Potency of this Tilt, to a minimum of 1. The Tilt lasts for one round per Potency, inflicting a -1 penalty and 1 bashing damage per round, increasing until it ends.
Causing the Tilt: Certain mental afflictions, supernatural powers, nerve damage.
Ending the Tilt: Penalties fade at a rate of one per turn once the Tilt ends. Any damage remains until the character can heal.
St. Cajetan of the Dice, 1548, unknown artist (Uter •) - Monday 11th Oct.
This life-sized portrait depicts Saint Cajetan, patron saint of Argentina, gamblers and the unemployed, standing beside a small table with a pair of dice falling from his hand into a bowl filled with silver coins. It was commissioned a year after his death by the Theatine Order he founded, and became an object of some curiosity in the art historian community in the late 1800s, as the particular shade of red of the inside of the saint's cloak was noted to be unique. Chemical testing of the pigment revealed it to be composed of human blood mixed with other, unidentifiable substances. This has only increased the curiosity surrounding the painting, especially as the pigment has been found nowhere else. Some say it was painted with the blood of the saint himself, and it has become a holy icon in the church in which it hangs in Apulia in southern Italy.
Power: If a person prays to the painting, they gain charges equal to their successes on a Composure + Resolve roll. Within the next week, they may spend one charge to either:
Turn a roll on a chance die into a roll on an ordinary die.
Negate up to three points of penalties to a single roll to do with gaining employment, begging charity or compassion from another, or a game of chance on which something significant to them is being wagered.
Though the player is aware of these charges and spending them, to the character they seem merely fortunate twists of fate. A given character may only make an effective prayer to the painting once per week.
Curse: St. Cajetan rejected the wealth and corruption of the upper echelons of the Catholic church in his time, and his blessing aids only with sustenance, not the accumulation of vast coffers. For a month after invoking the blessing of this Relic, a character may not increase their Resources above 2, or raise them higher if they already have Resources above 2. If the latter is the case, their effective Resources are reduced for that month by 1, to a minimum of 2, as fate conspires to distribute their wealth.
Mummies' Resources ratings are not reduced if they are already above 2, and the Su-Menent are untouched by this curse, as their funds are already apportioned to holy purposes.
The Ring of Amenmeit (Regia •••••) - Tuesday 12th Oct.
A ring is a circle, and circles symbolize many things. They may represent the sun, the moon or the boundaries of the earth. They may represent perfection, eternity or the continuance of time. The Ring of Amenmeit represents all of these things and more. An unassuming golden band, wrought in a perfect circle without adornment, it nevertheless seems to possess a kind of warmth or radiance that has nothing to do with physical light or heat. For centuries, it has adorned the hand of the Mesen-Nebu Arisen Amenmeit, and has become a symbol of her power, such that it now even shares her name. As to its original source, the mummy is tight-lipped, but certain hints have been gleaned over the years, connecting it to the Rub al-Khali region of the Arabian peninsula, or possibly to one of the Guildmasters of the alchemists in Irem.
Power: The ring is a perfected channel for the mystic principle of Dedwen, allowing its wearer to perform incredible feats of transmutation, as an expression of the highest alchemy. The wearer may spend 1 Willpower or Pillar point while touching an object or objects of Size no greater than Resolve + Composure and roll Intelligence + Occult or Science + Ren with a penalty equal to the object's Resources value (or, if multiple objects, their collective Resources value, as adjudicated by the Storyteller). On a success, she may transform the object into any object or objects of the same Resources value, splitting or combining them as desired. This process takes place over the course of several moments, as the objects in question seem to superheat, melting into a brilliantly-glowing golden substance before re-solidifying into their new form. If the desired object or objects is complex (e.g. a car, a computer, a cellphone) the Storyteller may require a second Intelligence + Craft roll with appropriate penalties to determine whether it is formed correctly; if this second roll fails but the first succeeds the transmutation fails overall.
Alternatively, the ring may be used to perform similar transmutations upon living flesh. Make a Dexterity + Brawl - Defense roll to touch an unwilling target, then spend 1 Willpower or 1 Pillar point and make a Clash of Wills against the target. Net successes inflict 1 Lethal damage as flesh is transmuted to gold, lapis lazuli or other precious materials, ignoring Armor. Each point of Lethal damage dealt this way reduces the target's Speed and Initiative by 2, and inflicts a -2 penalty to Dexterity rolls. If this effect is used to kill a target, they transmute entirely into a precious statue. If a use of this power inflicts more damage than the victim's Stamina, you inflict one of the following Tilts upon them as relevant body parts are transmuted: Arm Wrack, Leg Wrack, Blinded or Deafened. These transmutations revert when the damage heals, but if the relevant parts are hacked off before that point (upgrading a relevant level of Lethal damage to Aggravated, and likely inflicting permanent Tilts and Conditions) they remain in their new forms.
Curse: Such is the power of the Ring that without great skill it is extremely difficult to prevent it from latching onto the Dedwen in one's own flesh. Whenever a character uses the Ring, they must make a Composure + Occult roll. For each success short of 5, they suffer 1 Lethal damage as the same transmutation described in the previous paragraph overtakes their flesh, including all secondary effects. Mummies add their Defining Pillar rating to this roll, and Mesen-Nebu need not roll at all.
Hope you all like these, find them interesting and so on!
And, for good measure, my homebrew rules for Seba in 2e:
Seba
The Relics of the Deceived are unlike those of other Guilds. Rather than physical objects, they are notional relics, words of cosmic power and artistic revelation. Not unlike Utterances, they exist as channels carved into the fundament of creation, perhaps by gods, perhaps by Fate, perhaps by sublime works of art.
For the most part, seba exist in the way that the angel exists uncarved within the block of stone, or the river exists without water to run in its bed: In potential. They are not, in any conventional sense, but await a power to awaken them, to fill their channels as a flood fills and empty river's banks and bring them to life like a mummy arising from henet.
Some seba are the creations of humankind, arising from uniquely-inspired works of art. These are not the artworks themselves, but are born from them, as writing on a piece of paper may impress patterns on a sheet behind. Artistic seba have a function that relates in some way to the aesthetic vision of the art that spawned them, though Fate dictates the specifics. Depictions of violence, clashing colors, discordant sounds and the like will usually yield aggressive or combat-oriented magic, while a mournful and melancholic painting might unleash subtle slow-building curses. What quality separates one artwork from another such that one produces – or perhaps summons – a seba and one does not is a mystery lost to the ages; even in the days of Irem, the Shan'iatu did not always enjoy success in beckoning the power they desired.
Beyond the works of man, however, are cosmic seba, the jewels of the infinite heavens. Formed not by the arts of mankind, but the numinous mysteries of Fate, cosmic seba are incarnate reminders that Sekhem is not confined to earth, but a force that flows throughout the universe. Like artistic seba they have no location or position until they become manifest, heavenly conjunctions and events bringing cosmic Sekhem into alignment so as to fill them with power. The Sothic Turns in particular are often associated with many such convergences. Some cosmic seba return on their own cycles, while others have been seen only once. Perhaps their cycles are so long that even the Deathless have not existed long enough to catch them twice – or perhaps their appearance was truly unique, a wonder without precedent or repetition. Sometimes, the Deceived catch far-off glimpses of these treasures in the night sky, moving like comets or wheeling stars – and, indeed, it was for these glimpses that seba were named.
In both cases, however, it seems that seba do not require an external source of Sekhem to be created. The sacrifice of another vessel or of human life can sometimes empower a seba further, but it is not necessary. It is generally believed by the Restless Stars that their vessels are the treasures of Fate itself, and their power is as a spark from Fate's infinite radiant Is. Some even go so far as to claim that seba are the source of the original power at the root of Irem – that when there were only few Pillars in the first city, the lives of men were not spent for power, and the Empire was a paradise sustained by the gifts of Fate and the first Guild.
Celestial Alignment
At the appointed time and place, a seba may become manifest, trickles from the cosmic flow of Fate running into its lines and giving it location. It remains invisible, however, and lacks even the spiritual substance of Neter-Khertet. Only those who have previously bound a seba can perceive these manifest vessels; without such experience even magic which allows perception of subtle supernatural effects, such as the Godsight Affinity, may grant only what faint and momentary glimpses Fate allows – usually to those destined eventually to bind a seba themselves.
To those who can perceive them clearly, seba remain mysterious; without form, they are difficult to define. From a distance they are seen like stars fallen to earth, diffuse light forming a halo around a core of mystery. As one approaches, however, they resolve into shining hieroglyphs in a tongue ancient when Irem was raised – some say the very language of Fate itself – whose form owes as much to the shape of thought, feeling, body and soul as to any line or glyph. They are power whose name may be known only by taking them into one's soul.
When, where and for how long seba manifest is ultimately up to the Storyteller. However, what follows are some suggestions.
The length of a seba's manifestation is generally inversely proportional to its power; 1- and 2-dot seba generally manifest for several days or perhaps a week or two, 3- and 4-dot seba remain manifest only for hours, or at most a day, and 5-dot seba remain manifest for only one scene.
The length of time between manifestations is proportional to its power. Discounting periods decided by the Storyteller for plot reasons, or the auspicious alignment of the Sothic Turn, 1- and 2-dot seba measure their interval in months; 3-dot in years; 4-dot in decades; and 5-dot in centuries. Roll dice equal to the relic's rating with a target number of 6. The period between manifestations lasts a number of intervals equal to (1 + successes rolled).
Artistic seba always begin their first manifestation upon the completion of the work of art they are tied to, before beginning their cycle. They always manifest in places humans could – at least theoretically – reach with the means currently available to them.
Any seba a character has bound to them when they die or enter a death cycle or henet immediately begin a manifestation which ends at the end of the scene.
Catching Stars
Seeing as they lack any physical presence, and even their immaterial existence is generally passing, it may seem impossible to actually track down seba, or at least that happening upon one must be a result of either knowing their cycle (and hoping nothing's upset it in the meantime) or being present at the creation of an artistic seba. Fortunately, as they are treasures given forth by Fate, Fate sees fit to provide some guidance towards Its masterpieces.
Finding Seba
Deceived – and, once they have bound one, Arisen and Shuankhsen – are capable of tracking seba via kepher. However, this works slightly differently to normal kepher.
Firstly, instead of the Judges sending mummies to track them down, a mummy may attempt a special divination, reading the stars to glean a hint from Fate to begin a kepher investigation to find one. This is a (lower of Wits or Intelligence) + (lower of Occult or Expression) roll, which requires a direct view of the stars to attempt. Accurate maps or images of the stars may suffice, though they always impose a penalty. Success grants the first Clue in a kepher investigation to locate the seba, though not if the mummy has not yet completed a previous Fate-given kepher investigation. Exceptional success grants some other insight into the future or present, though not another Clue.
Secondly, such a kepher investigation will invariably reveal the time and place of a manifestation the mummy stands some chance of reaching, or the identity and location of the current bearer of a seba.
Those without the benefit of kepher may still attempt to track down such a conjunction. Doing so requires at least Occult 3 and a specialty in Iremite Magic, Nomenclature, Seba or similar, and success on an Extended roll with a goal number of 10 and an interval depending on the seba in question – a day for a 1-dot seba, a week for 2-dot, a month for 3-dot, 3 months for a 4-dot or and a year for 5-dot. This grants only knowledge of the time and place a seba will manifest, not assure that a character can or will reach it, or even that they know how to bind it.
Fate may occasionally grant a character visions and omens as if they were capable of kepher, leading them towards a seba and guiding them to claim it. This is often more a curse than a blessing, both because of the weight of Fate's treasures, and the fact that the Restless Stars are always on the lookout for the secret vessels of their Guild.
Binding Seba
Once a manifest seba has been found, it can be bound to one's soul to claim its power. This requires the character either be a part of the Lost Guild, have 4 or 5 dots of the Deceived Cult Initiation Merit, or have Occult 3+ and a specialty in Iremite Magic, Nomenclature, Seba or similar. Alternatively, if Fate desires them to, a character may bind a seba without such preparations.
Performing the binding requires that the character be within Occult x 10 meters of the manifest seba and spend 1 Willpower. If they have neither membership in the Lost Guild or 4+ dots of the Deceived Cult Initiation Merit, they must succeed on a Resolve + Occult roll with a penalty equal to the seba's rating to bind it successfully. On a success it momentarily flares, then implodes to those who can see it, Fate-given power coming to nestle amongst the Pillars of her soul like a tomb's Lifeweb. Arisen characters may bind as many seba as they wish, but mortals may only bind as many as they have missing dots of Integrity.
While bound, a seba is invisible, but when actively used those who can perceive manifest seba will be able to glimpse some manifestation of its power – blazing hieroglyphs, an impossible fluidity of motion in the bearer's form, or some other sign of their presence. Seba with constantly-active powers are constantly visible in this way, haloes and crowns on their bearers.
As with other Relics, non-mummies are subject to a seba's full curse, while mummies suffer a lesser version of it, and the Deceived are immune.
Seba bound within one's soul can be cannibalized like any other vessel, for the same benefits, but cannot be only partially drained. Doing so requires only the expenditure of a point of Willpower, which drains the vessel of the Sekhem which animates it, releasing it to the cosmos to exist in potential once more. Some seba can also be sacrificed to make use of their powers; this is done in the same way and has the same effects, but provides no other benefit besides the power. Seba drained or sacrificed can manifest again and even be re-acquired.
Example Seba An Age to Come Hereafter (Seba ••••)
It is said that this Seba is a prophecy which once fell from the lips of an apprentice of the Poet Itself, of a world after unguided humanity has destroyed itself, and when men and beasts draw close once more.
Power: The bearer of this Seba may spend 2 Willpower and one hour telling a tale of this benighted age to up to Presence aware targets. Unwilling targets may resist with Resolve + Ka, with a penalty equal to the bearer's Manipulation. If the targets are willing or fail to resist, at the end of this tale they undergo a painful transformation, limbs and jaws elongating until they have become an unwholesome hybrid of jackal, hyena and humanity. This transformation lasts until the next dawn, and confers the following effects:
+1 Size
+2 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +3 Stamina
+3 Speed
+2 dice to perception rolls, climbing or chasing rolls, or to rolls to resist inhospitable environments
Bite and claws become 2L weapons with no Initiative penalty
The character may eat anything and gain nourishment from it, so long as it is organic in nature. Their bite attacks ignore 1 Durability, and they cannot be harmed, directly or indirectly, by ingesting anything (e.g. they cannot catch disease from fouled meat, they suffer no splinters for eating wood etc).
While subject to the Berserk Condition, they regenerate 1 Bashing damage per round. If they have no Bashing damage remaining, they downgrade 1 Lethal damage to Bashing per round instead.
Transformed characters may speak, but invariably do so in curt, growling sentences.
The Seba's bearer may also create this transformation in herself for 1 Willpower or a point of Sheut as an Instant action. Additionally, when she transforms an Inheritor or Sadikh, she may impart this secondary ability to that Inheritor, though not the ability to transform others.
Curse: The prophesied age is one of brutality and the bestial remnants of humankind squatting in the ruins of their forbears. Those transformed via this Seba suffer a -2 penalty to all Intelligence and Manipulation rolls, which lingers for a week following the transformation. Additionally, while transformed characters are incapable of comprehending written language, and must succeed on a Composure + Resolve test whenever they smell or taste human blood to resist gaining the Beserk Condition. Anchored by their connection to the first true civilization, Mummies do not suffer the penalties to Intelligence and Manipulation.
A Drink to Vanity (••)
The Thousand Eyes in One teaches the art of thoughtful deconstruction, the erosion of ideologies and anthropocentric follies as sand wears temples down to join the flowing dunes; indiscriminately and without mercy. In the face of such ultimate meaninglessness mortal hearts quail and seek escape in thoughtless revelry - where there is no thought, there can be no dread of futility, and so the Philosopher's teachings devour themselves.
Power: When the bearer speaks to another character on the subjects of time, eternity, mortality, hedonism, pleasure or its fleeting nature, they may roll (Presence + Occult or Science or Persuasion or Socialize + Sheut), resisted by (Composure + Ren + supernatural tolerance). On a success, your interlocutor immediately takes the Wanton Condition, which cannot be resolved until the end of the scene.
Curse: If mortal souls find it hard to bear the weight of cosmic futility when told to one, how much harder is it to keep that knowledge next to one's heart? The bearer of this Seba is inflicted with the Wanton Condition at the beginning of each scene. Mummies are more inured to the unsettling weight of eternity, and thus only suffer it once per session; the Storyteller chooses which scene it is inflicted in.
@Aleph , would it be possible to get this post, and the previous one, threadmarked?
